Letters to the Editor

Finally, It's Fair Play

RE "Cutting Off the Air" (News&Views, May 30): What we have here is the RIAA, who have been for all these years set up like gods and controlled who got heard and who didn't. They could offer slave deals to artists if they chose to. They could manipulate artists if they chose to, and believe me they did!

Now people want the right to choose what they want to hear and see and not have some wealthy self-appointed "God of the Arts" corporation decide what they would allow the public to see, hear and buy!

A portion of the population has awoken and said, "Hey we don't need you deciding what we like and dislike and shaping our cultural tastes, the public can make that decision for themselves!"

The RIAA, CRB, Sony, EMI, Warner Bros., BMG, all major record labels and Feinstein--who looks after Hollywood interests and who is on the CRB--don't like that and want to be able to put up the gate keepers again and monopolize all the profits in their pockets like they have been doing since God knows when!

They are not used to fair competition in the market place and wish to remain in the seat of the privileged. Can you imagine if you had a business and could legislate laws so that you had no competitors?

Oh, how Macy's, Sears, Eaton's (in Canada) would have loved a deal like that.

Now that Internet Radio and websites like YouTube, etc., have come into existence, they have the potential to level the playing field. The RIAA and their cronies don't like that!

When a pig is used to standing at the trough alone for all these years, it gets vicious when it has to share and work at the trough to get fed. That is the reality I see clearly!

Cliff Dawe, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Demand Recall

RE "Feinstein Resigns": First, let me apologize for writing you two months after this article was published. I am a registered Republican. However, I do not consider myself a Conservative, etc. I would vote Democrat in the coming presidential election, if I could find another Truman. I read the article just two days ago, but my letter on the subject will be brief. Now that this despicable person, Dianne Feinstein, has been exposed, will the voters in California do an "Oh, my," a "Tsk Tsk," send her hate mail, or demand her recall? I'm sure there are men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, who do have relatives in California, who are deeply concerned for their relatives and friends, who should find themselves in the same situation the service personnel in military hospitals, etc., find themselves in. Or will the voters in your state sit back and say, "Well, what do you expect from these crooks, anyway?" I dread knowing the answer.

Rosemonde E. Fase, Honolulu, Hawaii

Correction

Oops, we goofed: Last week, the Table of Contents incorrectly identified Stephen Laufer as the photographer responsible for our cover image. While he is a great photographer, he didn't take our cover photo; it was anonymously produced stock art. Sorry for the mistake.